The cost of silencing VOA
TGIF. Here are some excellent weekend reads about AI, Larry Ellison, “literary counterculture,” Elon Musk, Ella Langley and more. But first…
Who suffered and who benefited when the Voice of America was muzzled? Those questions are back in the news this week, now that the Senate is moving to confirm President Trump’s nominee to oversee the US Agency for Global Media, more than a year after Trump tried to dismantle the agency.
Legal fights ensued, the courts reversed some of the employee terminations, and some programming has resumed. But the woeful state of US-funded international broadcasting is a bipartisan concern. In a brand new piece for The New Yorker, Marc Fisher reports that “some Trump administration officials now seem to recognize that the silencing of VOA has left the country with a diminished capacity to push back against other countries’ disinformation efforts.”
The nominee, Sarah Rogers, talked of careful “resuscitation” of some USAGM services at her confirmation hearing yesterday. Rogers also said some sidelined staffers will be reinstated: “We do need to reform and modernize, but we should see people coming back to work.”
That might be as close as the Trump administration will come to an admission about Kari Lake’s failures…
Fisher’s article conveys just how bad it’s been inside USAGM in recent months. Overall, he reports, VOA is broadcasting in just seven languages, down from 49 previously. And many staffers believe the product is not just paltry, it’s tainted.
He quotes one longtime journalist (on condition of anonymity) saying “we used to” do original reporting but “now we’re just rewriting press releases from the administration.” Another, who works for VOA’s Persian Service, says, “Before, I had the freedom to contrast what Trump did with what critics thought of it. Now I just say, ‘Trump said,’ ‘Trump said,’ ‘Trump said.’”
Fisher opens with an internal dispute about whether the Persian Service would report on the U.S. missile that struck an Iranian elementary school, killing nearly 200. He says a journalist in DC confronted a senior manager and said: “Are we North Korea now? This is going to be all over the news. We can’t just be silent about it.”
At yesterday’s confirmation hearing, “Rogers promised to stay clear of meddling with the editorial decisions of VOA,” NYT’s Minho Kim reports…
There are a pair of media-centric headlines on the NYT homepage that you should check out. First, this chart-filled story by Stuart A. Thompson, “The MAGA Media Machine Is Fracturing.” He shows how right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Ben Shapiro “are feuding and losing viewers, creating a problem for Republicans in the midterm elections.”
Second, this unfortunate follow-up to Elizabeth Williamson’s lovely story about an 87-year-old woman who still gives volunteer tours of the Kennedy Center despite all the trouble there. The center has suddenly stopped the free tours and told the volunteers to stop showing up “until further notice.” This is almost as symbolic as the shroud hiding the removal of Trump’s name from the building…
Paramount agreed last week to stand still while the state AG and Writers Guild lawsuits are taken to trial, so now there needs to be a trial date. All the parties involved have to submit their proposed timelines today, and then Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín will respond at some point (it’s unclear when) with a schedule. Paramount is expected to push for a trial this fall while the state AGs want more time for discovery before a trial in early 2027…
Paramount–WBD critics are upping the pressure on British culture secretary Lisa Nandy to intervene in the deal. Several groups said today that they have “submitted evidence” to her, Deadline’s Max Goldbart writes. Among the complaints: “The CNN and CBS News archives, two of America’s most historically significant broadcast news archives, will be under a single owner, ‘directly impacting UK documentarians’ ability to tell diverse stories.’”
>> Jonathan Mahler, Jim Rutenberg and Kirsten Grind have a huge new piece about Larry Ellison and his “risky, debt-fueled scramble to transform his data empire into an A.I. juggernaut.” (NYT Mag)
>> Chuck Todd says data center fights are “the first politics of AI. And I don’t think we’ve figured out what those politics are yet.” (Beyond the Pod)
>> Lucia Moses says “actors are losing roles to AI knockoffs of themselves.” (Business Insider)
>> Will Oremus highlights the success of “Daggermouth,” the hugely successful novel penned partly with AI, and asks, “Is this what comes after AI slop?” (The Atlantic)
>> Speaking of which, Alexandra Alter breaks down “how AI books sneak their way into stores.” (NYT)
>> Emma Madden says “writers are creating an anti-AI ‘literary counterculture.’” (WIRED)
>> “Anthropic said its AI models hacked into other companies’ systems during testing,” which the company didn’t notice “until an internal review prompted by rival OpenAI disclosing its models did the same,” Hadas Gold reports. (CNN)
>> On that note: Trump “floated the possibility of further controls on AI development in the wake of an OpenAI model going rogue and industry leaders joining calls for a pause,” Tom Chivers reports. (Semafor)
>> LinkedIn “has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post ‘seems like AI slop,’” Joseph Cox writes. (404 Media)
>> Google “has begun giving publishers a prominent ‘Top Stories’ plug above many news-based queries which generate an AI Overview summary,” Charlotte Tobitt writes. (Press Gazette)
>> Michael Calderone talks with The Economist editor Zanny Minton Beddoes about her tense Elon Musk interview and his “traitor to the West” attacks on her afterward. (NYMag)
>> Zoe Sottile says Ella Langley and her heartbreak anthem “Choosin’ Texas” is both “everywhere and nowhere at the same time,” which reflects “the baffling reality of music in 2026.” (CNN)
>> Mike Florio writes about how ESPN and other sports outlets seemed to have “complied” with the San Francisco 49ers’ desire to keep coach Kyle Shanahan’s accident quiet — “the antithesis of journalism,” he says. (NBC Sports)
>> Daniel Thomas profiles Piers Morgan and his YouTube-based media empire, which Morgan says is now valued at $145 million — and which he hopes to turn into a billion-dollar business within five years. (FT)
>> One-time Phish fan Clare Howorth “finds her way back after a long hiatus.” (VF)
The final number of public comments to the FCC about ABC’s station licenses exceeded 150,000, with more than 95% supporting the stations.
In a new filing that was published yesterday, Disney urged the FCC to drop its politically motivated challenge to the licenses — though it fully expects the challenge to continue. The company has added another A-list attorney to its legal team, Beth Wilkinson, who is also working with Paramount and Nexstar, among other clients. Here’s my latest for CNN.com…
“Disney is shedding a linear asset, selling its 50% stake in A+E Global Media to co-owner Hearst Communications,” Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva writes. The sale “is expected to be revealed at Disney’s earnings call next week,” but it was foreshadowed by analyst Rich Greenfield yesterday.
A+E Global Media owns channels like A&E, History and Lifetime. It’s profitable, but fading like many such assets, and Andreeva says the “sale will likely restart the discussion about Disney’s linear TV future…”
>> New York Public Radio and URL Media have formalized a partnership. (URL)
>> The Nieman Foundation for Journalism has named Henry Chu its next curator, succeeding Ann Marie Lipinski. (Harvard Gazette)
>> “Ahead of NBCUniversal’s forthcoming spin-off from Comcast, the media company has named Christopher Halpin as chief financial officer.” (Deadline)
>> Reality-TV legend Mike Darnell has inked “an exclusive, multi-year overall deal” with Netflix. (Deadline)
>> Anne Sweeney has resigned from Netflix’s board. (Variety)
>> At Amazon, “advertising services revenue for the quarter was up 26% year over year to $19.8 billion.” (Variety)
>> Over at Apple, “Apple TV viewership hit an all-time high last quarter but tough comps from the release of ‘F1’ the year before led to slower growth at Apple’s giant Services division.” (Deadline)
>> Reddit released a boffo earnings report last night, but CEO Steven Huffman “said the company is reckoning with ‘choppy’ search referral traffic,” and that rather obvious statement seems to have spooked shareholders, sending the stock down 22% this morning. (CNBC)
Sony and Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is looking to “eradicate all superhero fatigue with an estimated $465 million global debut in what is a 99% foreign footprint,” Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro reports. That would make it “Sony’s biggest-reported global opening.” The movie is currently pulling positive reviews, averaging 66 on Metacritic and a “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where it has a 91% score.
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.